Road Tripping

  “What the heck is this thing? My chomps do nothing.” One dark shape complained.

  “JLJDFGNSMFGFG” said the dark shape that had Honey by his neck shaking viciously.

  A voice called from the darkness, “If you get sprayed by that skunk, I’ll take away your ball privileges for a month.”

  ZOOMY CHARGE. SCWING. PLASMA BALL. Ratskeller charged, knocking the chomping dark shape away. Pumpkin appeared on the back of the dark shape holding Honey in its mouth and held her metallic claws an inch from the monster's eyeball. The dark shape spit out Honey and stood very still. Yuki drove the other three dark shapes back with rays of fire.

  CHOMP. Ratskeller’s dark shape jumped narrowly avoiding her jaws of doom. “BAD DOG!” Ratskeller said.

  “I’m a good boy!” The dark shape countered.

  “STOP!” a deep voice said. Two enormous black dogs appeared.

  Honey charged at the new arrivals. “I will kill you. I don’t give a …” The largest of the two casually batted Honey away with a paw sending the badger flying into a hedge. He stepped forward and leaned down to sniff Ratskeller who showed him her teeth.

  “A dachshund. I was raised by a dachshund. I learned much from her about how to be a good boy.” the cane corso said. George, Yuki, and Pumpkin relaxed a little and stepped up behind Ratskeller. The dog’s eyes looked them over. “Why is a dachshund travelling with a humanless, zoo creatures, and a cat?”

  Ratskeller stood as tall as she could, almost reaching the cane corso’s knee. “They are helping me and Pumpkin find our humans?’

  The large dog nodded. “So you are a good girl. We also seek our humans. We heard some humans are protecting the little humans at our little human’s school.”

  “I’ll kill you. I don’t give a….” Honey charged again only to be flipped back into the bushes by the other large cane corso.

  Yuki let her ball of flame fade and hollered, “Honey. Calm down, the fighting is over.” Honey’s head popped out of the hedge and looked around before he trotted over to sit beside Yuki, licking some of the scratches he had picked up during the brief scuffle. George reached over and quickly healed him.

  The five slightly smaller cani corsi stood behind the pair that were probably their parents. Ratskeller explained they were headed to the zoo first and then the VA place. The dogs shared images of the smell of their various humans and Pumpkin shared the names and descriptions of her humans.

  “Be careful, brave dachshund. There are many strange creatures out besides those infected with the greeneye. Beware of the fire breathing beasts flying in the sky.” Diesel, the father said. “We’ve seen several.”

  “What are they?” George asked.

  “Our little human liked to watch shows about giant lizards called dragons. These remind me of them, but I doubt these can be trained.” Daisy, the mother said in a surprisingly sweet voice. One of the pups approached Honey and started sniffing. Daisy called out in an exasperated voice, “Leave the skunk alone.”

  “I’m not a…” Honey started to say, but stopped and smiled evilly. He turned around and raised his butt in the air. The pup jumped back. Honey chased him running backward with his butt in the air.

  “Mom, help.” the pup cried as he tried to hide behind her. She swatted him away.

  “Don’t bring that thing near me. You started it.” she told him and he ran to attempt to hide behind his brothers who scattered as Honey charged towards them hopping backwards.

  “We need to go. Good luck finding your humans.” Diesel said and he and Daisy started walking down the middle of the road towards where Ratskeller assumed the school was. The pups fell in behind them. The one being chased by Honey ran past them whimpering.

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  Honey stopped when he reached his team and called out, “I have yet stunk my last stink. I have your scent. I will find you and one day you will wake up and open your eyes to the sight of my glorious behind locked and loaded.”

  “Honey!” Yuki said, shocked by her companion's crude behavior.

  “What? He tried to chomp me. Several times.” Honey explained.

  “Honey, you are not a skunk.” Yuki said, shaking her head.

  “Where there’s a will, there will be a way.” Honey said as he once again took the lead. A few minutes later he dashed across a street, but froze at the corner of the porch on the first house staring across the street.

  The others pushed up beside him to see what he was watching. A light appeared at the front of a house on the other side of the street then disappeared to appear in front of the next house. They watched the light move to the house across the street from them.

  Suddenly a mail carrier with a light on his head appeared on the porch they were huddled next to. The man was singing. “Workin 8 to 10. What a way to make a livin. It’s all mandating and no vacation. They just give you extra and never give you credit. It’s enough to drive you crazy if you let it.”

  The mail carrier disappeared and reappeared at the next house. The animals all looked at each other before shrugging and continuing on their way.

  ****

  A while later the team was at the edge of the zoo’s parking lot. They were laying underneath a hedge staring at the zoo. “I don’t hear a thing?” Yuki said.

  “I don’t like the looks of this.” Pumpkin said. The air had the strong scent of smoke and small fires burnt on the limbs of trees inside the zoo. The wall around it had been damaged in several places and the buildings they could see had the tops ripped off.

  Ratskeller pointed her nose towards the far edge of the parking lot. “I think we can get in through that hole over there.”

  Pumpkin looked at where Rats was pointing and then back at destroyed buildings inside the zoo. “You sure we should go in there? One of those dragon things might be in there.”

  “Our humans might be in there.” Ratskeller said and stood up to follow the hedge down to the end of the lot. Pumpkin looked wide eyed at the others, but they just trotted after Ratskeller. Not wanting to be left alone, she followed.

  Ratskeller was worried. She smelled burnt meat. She didn’t want her humans to be burnt meat. BOUNCE. She jumped up into the hole in the wall and looked around. There were burn marks everywhere. A charred body much too large to be a human was laying on the other end of the walkway she was looking down on.

  She started to jump, but George stopped her with a paw on her shoulder. “We should be safe to eat another treasure. It has been quite a while.” He looked at the dead body. “We may need all the strength we can get.” Rats pulled out her treats and saw the book she had forgotten. As George pulled out a treat for everybody and looked inside the box in confusion before shrugging, Rats learned her new skill.

  As information flooded her mind, Ratskeller smiled. This new skill sounded like a lot of fun. George held up a treat for her. She ate it and felt the rush of power enter her body. This time the tiredness only lasted for a second before her eyes opened wide and she felt full of energy. The hole they were sitting in felt a little tight as they had all grown a little.

  Jumping down, Ratskeller sniffed along the walkway to a building. Honey took a position in front of her and she was followed by Pumpkin, George, and finally Yuki. They all walked slowly, turning their heads to scan their surroundings. Ratskeller could mostly smell smoke and animals, but underneath the dominant smells, she smelled traces of humans having recently been there.

  Working her way down the walkway, she came to a building that was mostly intact. She looked up at a sign and was surprised to realize she could read it. Primates. That word seemed familiar. Ratskeller had memories of sitting in the snuggle spot with her humans watching monkeys on the TV.

  She found a door and George made quick work of the lock and slowly opened it. Ratskelller started to enter but Honey jumped in front of her. “I’m the tank. Follow…” A large hand attached to an arm covered in orange fur reached down and grabbed him.

  CHOMP. Ratskeller missed. George made the air shimmer in front of them. A deep voice said, “Honey? What are you doing back here? Leonard won’t like you being back.”

  “Louie? Is that you?’ Yuki asked.

  “Yuki? Why did you two come back?” The deep voice asked. Ratskeller stepped into the building and looked up. She saw that an enormous orange monkey with a weird face was hanging from a pipe over the door holding Honey in one hand.

  “We’re looking for humans.” Ratskeller said. “Have you seen any humans?”

  Louie shook his head. “They’re gone. The fire breather took them all. It ripped the cages open and flew away with them.”

  Ratskeller’s ears drooped, but her eyes still burnt with determination. “Did you see which way it went?”

  Louie dropped to the ground and stepped out to point the direction the dragon had flown. Ratskeller stared for a few seconds then had an idea. She looked around before running to a smooth spot of the cold white stuff. She scratched two lines that intersected and looked at it for a second before taking a claw and clearing two spots near the top of one of the lines.

  “What are you doing?” George asked.

  “Thinking.” Ratskeller said. She took her claw and drew a small square and then pointed with her paw. “This is my house.” She said pointing towards one of the small spots she had cleared. “This is the mall.” She then used her claw to draw a thin line from home across the street and around the mall.

  Ratskeller then drew another thin line down to the square. “We followed the road down without crossing it. So we’re still on this side and we didn’t cross a bigger road like the one we’re looking for. So we must be around here.” She said pointing to the square.

  Drawing another thin straight line down and past the other large line she had drawn. “The dragon flew in that direction.” She moved the paw back to the top of the first line. “Jeri said to follow the big road down to a bigger road and then turn left and the VA would be on the right.” Ratskeller moved her paw down the first line to the second line that she followed to the left. She then marked a spot beneath the second road.

  “The VA should be here.” The spot wasn’t far from where the dragon's path crossed the second line. “We should go to the VA and if my humans aren’t there, we can look for where the dragons took them.”

  “Probably put them straight into his…” Honey started to say, but Yuki covered his mouth with her paws. George gave him a dirty look and shook his head.

  George suddenly stood up straight and looked around. “Where did Louie go?”

  A voice growled from two large green eyes that glowed between the buildings on the other side of the walk way. “Honey. I’m so happy you came back. We were wondering what we should have for dinner.” The eyes came closer and an enormous cat many times larger than Pumpkin stepped out. Green glowing eyes appeared in the darkness all around them.

  “Leonard.” Honey growled. “I’LL KILL YOU. I DON’T GIVE A CRAP.” Honey charged and leapt for the large head surrounded by the thick fur of the cat.